I think that is Job's (alleged) point. It seems reasonable, but it isn't being done. Xcode is free to download and available for adobe to use. All the objective C frameworks are in place to access the hardware.

The big question is why doesn't Adobe stop being lazy and start being progressive like they used to in the past. I yawned when I saw the CS3 to CS4 feature changes. Same story on flash. No improvements and only overload added.

Exactly. Looking at After Effects (which compiles code to run on the GPU realtime), they certainly have the skill to do something like this. Since Flash is just used for playing back video 99% of the time, they could at least optimize this use case. I'm no Flash expert, but I think Flash is based purely on a painters model which isn't very efficient to begin with. Modern systems only use a painters model for things that don't change very often.

Apple provide access to the Quicktime framework. Adobe just wants direct access to the hardware, and there is no reason for that other than to introduce security holes and instability. If they would be willing to stick with the proper API than they wouldn't have such a preformance problem (with video anyway).

Anyone able to explain to me how it is that applications like VLC or mplayer are able to accomplish H.264 acceleration if there is no direct access to that feature? What is it exactly that Adobe needs to make this happen?

One just gets the feeling like somewhere some Apple guy is picking apart the Adobe flash code with Steve & going, "what the heck is this garbage?! They seriously can't believe we want this crap running on our mobile devices, it'll ruin our reputation!"

The main stink is Flash on mobile devices. Flash on desktops is bad enough. I find it a bit odd as to why the discussion is flash on the desktop. Efficient or not, full PC's can handle Flash. Stability is another issue.

Why isn't there a comparison between HTML5 on the iPhone vs. Flash on Android or something? It's mobile platforms that's making the most noise.

Excellent point, this study is garbage. Jobs didn't mean a cpu hog for desktops, he meant so for mobile devices.

The article was not very clear on the procedure used with respect to that percentage issue.

On dual core for example Mac full CPU usage = 200% where full usage on Windows is 100%

Which would mean you have to scale the Windows numbers to match the range on the mac numbers. This report to me looks like it was custom tailored to bend the number in favor of the selected outcome. Much like the data being used in the global warming debate.

Quote:

So maybe my math is faulty or the data needs adjusting but it makes Flash look even less of a CPU hog.

No I think you are going the wrong way you would need to scale the Windows numbers to a range of zero to 200% given that both machines are on dual core hardware. But there are even questions here such as the threading model used by Flash, the actual number of thread and the accumulated processor usage numbers. Frankly I trust Unix accounting a little more than Windows but in the long run there is to little data here for some body to make their own deductions.

Quote:

I think one of the things that you hear a lot is that as soon as you click on a Flash element you hear the hard drive and the fans come on. That could be because you are running Click2Flash which is blocking the plugin. When you click it the plugin launches. This behavior is different if the plugin loads when the browser is launched without Click2Flash. In the later case you don't sense the ramp of launch on click, making it much less noticeable.

But with all the ads you have to run Click2Flash.

Yes this is by far the most important Plugin I've ever installed it just makes the web that much more usable.

What I find interesting here is that people think that Flash works well on Windows machines. It really doesn't unless you have a lot of hardware to throw at it. This is the whole point of 10.1 to leverage as much hardware as possible to make Flash bearable on Windows. Don't believe me, then try running Flash on a PC with Intel integrated GPU tech.

It is notable that you mention the spinning fans. Run Flash on a PC with the required virus checker/blockers and you will really hear those fans crank up. Using more hardware to get results that barely match the HTML5 approach isn't better performance, it is performance at a cost.

Yes. When Joe Shmoe goes to a flash internet site, and it will not work, he realizes right away that Flash is not part of the whole internet. And as we all know, only geeks care about watching video adjacent to the internet.

You fail to catch his point.

He's a mod so he has a few extra vBulletin privileges. That doesn't mean he should stop posting or should start acting like Digital Jesus.- SolipsismX

Excellent point, this study is garbage. Jobs didn't mean a cpu hog for desktops, he meant so for mobile devices.

The study is useless for more than that reason. I wouldn't even venture to call it a study, more like someone threw together some quick tests in order to conclude that Flash was still a viable competitor.

It's hard to really compare HTML 5 when the standard is still being finalized & most HTML 5 pages are in beta right now. When it passes final draft & starts being used you will see Safari, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, & all the others get significant updates that will enable HTML 5 on both systems. Then & only then can you really compare performance side by side.

There are other factors to consider as well in this, pure measurement of CPU might also be misleading. Like many have already said, this really should have been directed towards flash vs HTML 5 on mobile devices since in the end Adobe can't even currently provide a fully functional player for any mobile device.

This was just a bad test & it really doesn't tell us anything about how HTML 5 will stand against flash in the real world.

For IO like Mic or Webcam, for Augmented reality, Marker Detection etc.

And for designer it's Timeline animation.
Designers are not gona create interactive adverts in Javascript. We need timeline- and WYSIWYG editors for HTML5 and JavaScript.

And javascript, dom, etc. needs an overhaul for this too. It would be well suited as a flash replacement with a few minor changes. Personally, I think the ECMA, Mozilla, or whoever controls JavaScript these days should identify these areas create some additions that allow easier rich editor integration with JavaScript. I'm sure there are some issues with packaging, code reuse, and streaming. Maybe some of these will be addressed with things like HTML5 web sockets. I think JavaScript needs some sort of reusable package format for it to scale to larger frameworks.

Yeah! "CPU hog" means what we say it means! And we mean for mobile devices.

Flash is a CPU hog. Get over it!

Of course it means what the one who said it intended it to mean. It doesn't mean whatever the heck you 'd want it to mean for sure. That's the way conversation works. Steve clearly referred to flash being a cpu hog in response to the (moronic) no flash support debate on the ipad, ipod, iphone devices. He hasn't banned flash on macs.

Like the other poster here said, let's do a test of how well flash runs on a mobile device such as an android, what the battery and performance penalties are.

HTML5 is not natively supported in Firefox or Internet Explorer, but the update from Flash 10 to Flash 10.1 improved CPU performance for the browsers by 73 percent and 35 percent, respectively. Flash 10.1 in Windows offers added hardware acceleration.

Wrong. The H.264 Videos on YouTube are not natively supported in the HTML 5 support in Firefox because Firefox doesn't have a license for the codec.

So the the question then is why would anyone buy a PC to surf the net when you could buy a Mac and view web-content faster and more efficiently (if only the web wasn't riddled with closed access content you need a insecure and slow plugin to see! ).

I think that is Job's (alleged) point. It seems reasonable, but it isn't being done. Xcode is free to download and available for adobe to use. All the objective C frameworks are in place to access the hardware.

The big question is why doesn't Adobe stop being lazy and start being progressive like they used to in the past. I yawned when I saw the CS3 to CS4 feature changes. Same story on flash. No improvements and only overload added.

Exactly. I don't know what kind of tests they are actually running and what they are comparing, but it seems like there is some red herring somewhere.

@everyone: They seem to make a big deal of H.264 versus Flash, and then talk about native this and native that, or what gets to use special acceleration and what doesn't. I don't know what that has to do with anything. You are either using good code or you aren't.

H.264 is the codec. It's really good, and it will be used more and more. YouTube uses it. Then there is the player -- Flash, QT, HTML5 or something else? Your choice. Windows Media Player is pretty pathetic; and it doesn't seem to decode H.264 anyway. Hence Windows users get used to all these individual, stylized Flash players that everybody and his dog puts on their websites.

I would rather a pure HTML tag/player that calls up system resources (ie, QT) -- whether that be CPU, GPU or hardware accelerated.

If I just want to play some H.264 video, what is taking the extra CPU cycles when I use a Flash player? The Flash player.

CPU usage is only half the issue, I think. I don't know why people like to say you can't have the "full" internet without Flash. It's like using one of those cassette tape dongles so you can plug your CD Walkman into your car radio/cassette player. Get an MP3 player already. Flash was fine for interactive CD-ROMs 12 years ago (I made a few). But, we've moved on a bit.

When my kids go to technical arts college, what do I want them to learn. Do I want the college to invest in expensive licenses and lessons for Flash Studio or Director or whatever indecipherable program Adobe has going this year? Or, do I want them to learn FCP so they can produce great content that is suitable for a variety of mediums?

Though, we may be in for a bit of a long haul... the US still uses imperial measurements, and why can't the US just adopt A4-based paper sizes?

Mobile devices are where the current issue is. But obviously there is discontent with Flash on the desktop too. There is a reason so many of us run Click-to-flash.

Oh of course, but their impetus was the recent flash/ipad issue. I 've opted for html5 on youtube too, and I ll install click to flash too eventually, I keep putting it off..

Quote:

Originally Posted by hezekiahb

The study is useless for more than that reason. I wouldn't even venture to call it a study, more like someone threw together some quick tests in order to conclude that Flash was still a viable competitor.

It's hard to really compare HTML 5 when the standard is still being finalized & most HTML 5 pages are in beta right now. When it passes final draft & starts being used you will see Safari, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, & all the others get significant updates that will enable HTML 5 on both systems. Then & only then can you really compare performance side by side.

There are other factors to consider as well in this, pure measurement of CPU might also be misleading. Like many have already said, this really should have been directed towards flash vs HTML 5 on mobile devices since in the end Adobe can't even currently provide a fully functional player for any mobile device.

This was just a bad test & it really doesn't tell us anything about how HTML 5 will stand against flash in the real world.

It looks like Safari has a better implementation of HTML 5 video then the other browser. Safari HTML5 video completely blows all the other combinations away.

That is only one aspect to the Flash problem though. HTML5 only uses CPU overhead when playing a video. Flash uses CPU overhead when it is just sitting there in a background advertisement (burning that iPad battery away if ran on it).

So, a couple points here, but they all relate to the same to the same point, the point made in the original article: It's all about the HARDWARE ACCELERATION. That's the big difference. Safari, made by apple, is able to access Hardware Acceleration via Quicktime... The other browser have not been given access to hardware acceleration... that's why your seeing such a huge difference between the other HTML5 implementations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by solipsism

They did back in 2006. It's called Core Animation.

Flash Player 10.1 that was tested uses Core Animation (only on Safari thought). That's not what we're talking about here. We are talking about Hardware Acceleration. That's why there's the difference between Mac and Windows. There's access to it on Windows (and all all mobile handsets that are including flash too, mind you), whereas Apple does not provide access. Basically crippling any competition to Quicktime (which does have access to Hardware Acceleration).

Quote:

Originally Posted by solipsism

Exactly! That is one of two main issues with Flash on the iPhone. The other is navigation on a Flash site with your fingers.

This was a test performed using a single Youtube video, with a restart between tests, and repeated once to ensure consistency. It appears to be a fairly well controlled, but very limited test. We can conclude that at least in this instance, Flash played video equally well (if not better) when compared to HTML5 on a freshly rebooted machine if it had access to hardware acceleration. I'd be more interested in what happened if you replayed the video several times. My biggest gripe about flash is that it seems to suck more and more resources the longer you use it. On the other hand, maybe this result shouldn't be entirely surprising given that they were both playing the same h264 video, but flash (and html5) is more than just video.

It's not the same, they have 300% more internet because they can play flash efficiently!

Believe it or not there are many sites & whole website consulting businesses that are building a product against the standard now instead of trying to make it work the same with IE while still working properly in FIrefox & the others. The web is starting stick it to Microsoft & you now see sites that require Firefox/Safari/Chrome in order to function. This is actually a very big deal as it was the reverse of this that once gave IE the ability to boot Netscape from the top, people wanted access to more advanced & interactive content that didn't work on Netscape. This is only the very beginning of the web revolution, those who choose to ignore it or scoff at it are going to find themselves in a very sad place when this all explodes.

We also have a much more tech savvy generation running around the web these days. As we pass from one generation to the next the face of web & technology is going to change dramatically, a lot of it overnight.

The main stink is Flash on mobile devices. Flash on desktops is bad enough. I find it a bit odd as to why the discussion is flash on the desktop. Efficient or not, full PC's can handle Flash. Stability is another issue.

Why isn't there a comparison between HTML5 on the iPhone vs. Flash on Android or something? It's mobile platforms that's making the most noise.

I don't have a mobile device for viewing the web, iPhone or otherwise I probably won't get one for a few years I have absolutely no need for one.

What Flash does or does-not do on an iPhone is pretty meaningless, by the time the technology is mature enough to warrant buying a smarphone Flash will be dead.

Why Flash is so crap on my computer, that's what interests me. Mobile content is irrelevant because it is a tiny fraction of all Internet traffic.

Depending on which machine they are testing on.
Hardware Acceleration in quicktime is only available if that mac uses a certain display cards.

But anyways, Apple does provide a way to access the so called "Hardware Acceleration" in OpenCL. Knowing adobe who just discovered core Animation, I wonder how many years it'll take them to discover OpenCL.

Like I always said, Adobe can't program themselves out of a paper bag.
If they want Flash to have any kind of future, they need to open it up.

Depending on which machine they are testing on.
Hardware Acceleration in quicktime is only available if that mac uses a certain display cards.

But anyways, Apple does provide a way to access the so called "Hardware Acceleration" in OpenCL. Knowing adobe who just discovered core Animation, I wonder how many years it'll take them to discover OpenCL.

Like I always said, Adobe can't program themselves out of a paper bag.
If they want Flash to have any kind of future, they need to open it up.

Problem is that sure hardware acceleration will help but it shouldn't be the solution to an underlying deficiency in the code to start with.

There is no reason why I shouldn't be able to get acceptable performance on a dual core 2.4Ghz machine without hardware acceleration.

I don't put too much stock in these tests since they are often vague and limited. I use personal real world tests such as Major League Baseball game streaming. They switched to Flash this last season and service was less reliable and used a lot more resources. The year before MLB was using Silverlight and the service worked great and much less resource heavy.

Pretty sure that Silverlight didn't have hardware acceleration on the Mac at that time, so if MS can do it, why can't Flash?

The main stink is Flash on mobile devices. Flash on desktops is bad enough. I find it a bit odd as to why the discussion is flash on the desktop. Efficient or not, full PC's can handle Flash. Stability is another issue.

Why isn't there a comparison between HTML5 on the iPhone vs. Flash on Android or something? It's mobile platforms that's making the most noise.

Flash on a desktop isn't 'bad enough' for the vast, vast majority of desktop users, as virtually all of them run Windows.

I have a Win7 desktop which is several years old and 720p flash rarely passes 10% CPU. 480p flash is on about 1% CPU. So for me, and most people, flash 'just works' and I have no pressing desire to see it replaced. The opposite really, as it's possible to write some pretty nice games in flash.

Apple provide access to the Quicktime framework. Adobe just wants direct access to the hardware, and there is no reason for that other than to introduce security holes and instability. If they would be willing to stick with the proper API than they wouldn't have such a preformance problem (with video anyway).

Exactly. There should have at least been a mention in the article about what a colossally bad idea it is to allow an internet plug-in to have hardware level access at all.

I don't have a mobile device for viewing the web, iPhone or otherwise I probably won't get one for a few years I have absolutely no need for one.

What Flash does or does-not do on an iPhone is pretty meaningless, by the time the technology is mature enough to warrant buying a smarphone Flash will be dead.

Why Flash is so crap on my computer, that's what interests me. Mobile content is irrelevant because it is a tiny fraction of all Internet traffic.

I understand your comment, but the last sentence (bolded) is quite wrong.

This year, it's predicted that the number of people accessing the Internet from mobile devices will actually pass the number of desktops. It will only accelerate. The fact that Flash is so inefficient it struggles on (some) desktops and *needs* hardware acceleration to even work is really just the appetiser. It needs to work well on mobiles.

Adobe is typically behind on all this stuff. They have feet of clay and it's going to cause them to be left behind. If you have Adobe stock, I'd advise selling it right away.

I am SOOOOOO glad we're past that stage in the Internet when everyone had to write non-compliant code so that their site would work on Internet Explorer 6 perfectly but in another browser would likely crap out.

This stinks of the same reasoning. C'mon, if Microsoft can adjust to web standards, why the hell can't Adobe? Web Standards. Non-proprierity. Not locked in.

Wouldn't that be something?

Agreed!

From Apple ][ - to new Mac Pro I've owned them all.Long on AAPL so biased"Google doesn't sell you anything, Google just sells you!"

The less content argument is stupid and false. Theres no lack of content on the iDevices. I can find all the web apps, h.264 videos, and App Store apps I could ever want.

One, "less" is a comparative word. It means "not as much," and two, it doesn't imply that non-Flash content is scarce...

Three, App Store Apps should not even be included in your list... wtf?

Four, are you telling me that you never, ever peruse a website that requires flash? Ever? If not, then, fine. The iPhone is perfect for you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by John.B

We'll see when Flash arrives on Android phones and the battery life only lasts 30 minutes or an hour...

Windows users... Sheesh!

You made some pretty royal assumptions on that one, John. 1) Android != Windows, 2) if the differences between iDevice efficiencies and non-iDevice efficiencies scale (which is unlikely considering battery life optimization is of primary concern in mobile devices), Android Flash absolutely could not be any worse than 50% more CPU intense, i.e. 66% of typical battery life.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tomfoolery

That's actually not true. What most people don't know is that Flash video is H.264. It's the same encoded string of bytes sitting on a hard drive someplace. The only difference is that Flash uses its own software component to decode and play back that string of bytes, while HTML 5's implementation of the video tag uses the native operating system's H.264 playback.

Yeah, "Encoded" was not the correct terminology to use, but rather "packaged," or "presented" via flash.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tomfoolery

That's how Youtube was able to flip a switch and enable HTML 5; they don't have to reencode anything. It's the same bytes, just played back by the operating system instead of a crappy and unnecessary browser plug-in.

If it is as easy as flipping a switch, why wouldn't every web site do it?

Fact is, video playback is not Flash's only trick. There is a lot of other flash-presented content that WOULD have to be re-"encoded" to work properly with HTML5.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tomfoolery

I've said this on another thread here, but I'll repeat myself: Adobe doesn't get to unilaterally declare that Flash is "part of the Internet." To the extent that the word "Internet" has any useful meaning at all, it refers to a set of standardized protocols that anybody can implement and use. Flash doesn't meet that definition.

Flash is not part of "the whole Internet." Flash is merely Internet-adjacent.

Where do you draw the line between what is part of the internet and what is adjacent? Hell, my crappy Nokia 3100 could theoretically access "the whole internet," just in a terrible, text-only way. Just as rich text, images and CSS are now standards in mobile web browsing, so too is flash-style media presentation in desktop browsing. If I cannot view what is the predominant web multimedia platform on my iDevice, then I do not have the "full internet."

More internet than my Nokia 3100 and any other phone of its generation, that's for damn sure, but certainly not "full."

Quote:

Originally Posted by wizard69

Yes and much of that Flash content is virus infused or malware. A good portion of Flash on the internet is there to compromise your system.

I think that's more than a bit of hyperbole...

Quote:

Originally Posted by wizard69

Of course there are good sites that put Flash to an advantage, but they now have options that should be better long term.

Agreed that today's options are better... but that doesn't immediately change the fact that Flash is still being used A LOT.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wizard69

As to battery life that is a very real question. That is why I'd prefer that the user had control of Flash on his portable devices. Click To Flash works really well on my Mac so why not something similar for portable hardware?

Agreed here. Let the user decide!

Quote:

Originally Posted by hmurchison

Uh no the 90% figure is a dream figure as Windows is heavily entrenched in the server room were Flash would be used at a front end at best if at all.

What planet do you live on? Far less than 10% of world-wide consumer sales are Macs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hmurchison

It's not abouit picking bettery battery life versus content. Flash is simply a container for multimedia content. There are other options in many cases which is why Apple is chosing a different path.

Apple is in fact looking at my best interest because they are working to keep the Internet free from proprietary HTML tags, proprietary encoding methods (Silverlight, Flash etc). HTML5 doesn't cost you $$$ to utilize and consumers always love a good price.

I don't like proprietary formats more than anyone else, but If the majority of the content is platform-entrenched, I'd bite it, and settle for that format.

By the way, speaking of proprietary formats, why doesn't Apple open up the App Store to all who wish to develop for the iPhone?

...Yeah, I went there. Apple is the prince of closed systems, second only to Microsoft.